


Choreography

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Actors Guild, Gen, Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:22:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26685088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: From thenightgaunt on tumblr "An Ankh-Morpork dance theater group that tried to get into political satire" as a reading of @CrocInCrocs gif of Vimes, Vetinari and Lipwig
Comments: 7
Kudos: 12





	Choreography

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dats_der_bunny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dats_der_bunny/gifts), [scent_of_books](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scent_of_books/gifts), [CrocInCrocs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrocInCrocs/gifts).
  * Inspired by [That gif, you know the one](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/692245) by CrocInCrocs, thenightgaunt. 



> Gods, I miss the theatre

Elise knew she needed to shut up about the Actors Guild. The act before her monologue series were dancers and they had gone to the trouble of hiring someone to do wardrobe. They didn’t want to hear about how traditionally actors moved the scenery themselves and provided their own costumes and did each other’s makeup, and yes, that was why she was bumming their mascara and definitely not because she’d set it on the ledge on the back of one of the scenery flats and it had rolled away into the house during the set change at dress rehearsal. 

She had been among the first group of women and girls admitted to the Guild following pressures to the tune of “I’m writing more female characters and we must have women on the professional stage and if you take this change as an excuse for heteronormative binarist nonsense my ax will be the least of worries” and had played a very young Duke Felmet to Tomjon’s Lady F. She was looking forward to branching out from Hwel tonight but she was having difficulty concentrating on her upcoming performance.

The dancers were in a state of uproar. Mateo, the performer playing Moist von Lipwig, had discovered the hole drilled in the wall that allowed actors to see into the audience before the curtain rose.

Cyril Chip, who everyone called Cereal Chip and who called everyone ‘darling’ and who was wearing a version of a watch breastplate and helmet that appeared to be made out of the same flexible metallic material as Mateo’s hat had asked if there was an extremely large crowd outside or about three people, since either could account for Mateo’s horrified expression. Mateo shook his head.

Gian, dressed all in black, who was on the floor in a split with his foot on a pile of Elise’s books on Elise’s chair, which was another reason she couldn’t concentrate (he had asked and she had said yes without thinking about it, it was good casting, all things considered) asked what was happening.

“Is Lipwig out there?” Chip asked.

Mateo went back to warming up. All he said was “The show must go on.”

Cereal Chip seemed to realize Elise was there. “You know this theatre, don’t you, darling? Can you show me where this hole in the wall he’s talking about is?”

“Do you mean the entire theatre?” Elise smirked.

“We like to get a look at the audience before we go onstage,” Chip said grandly, as though Elise had not been regaling the dancers with the details of her actually rather prestigious career and her incorrigible name-dropping.

Elise waved a hand like an empress, as though she wasn’t sitting on a rather grubby table in front of a mirror that had fallen off the wall three times during technical rehearsal. “Stage right, between the slats in the wood. You can’t miss it if the house lights are up.”

Chip wandered across the crossover between the dressing room and scene storage like a small gazelle on stilettos.

Elise had been meaning to ask them what their show was actually supposed to mean, what it was intended to be a commentary on, but every time she tried to formulate the question she was distracted by the visuals. He really did have legs that were almost as good as Vimes’.

Chip ran back across the crossover like a gazelle that had caught sight of a cheetah, muttering “What a to-do to die today, at a minute or two to two; a thing distinctly hard to say, but harder still to do. For they’ll beat a tattoo, at twenty to two…”

“Is Commander Vimes out there?” Elise asked, eyes wide.

She looked at Gian, who had switched which foot was propped up on _Contemporary Monologues For Teens, Ex-Accountants and Classically Trained Bisexuals_ , _Hwel and Holy Wood_ , _An Actor Unprepared,_ and _Little Reckonings In Really Great Rooms_. 

“Do you want to take a look too?” she asked.

Gian looked up at her and placidly raised an eyebrow. “Mmm? No, that’s not a part of my process. A performance is a gift to the audience whether that be one person or ten thousand.”

Seven began to chime across the city and onstage a music box opened and a string quartet of imps began playing through a magically amplified megaphone. It quite possibly included the world’s smallest violin.

Elise wished the experimental dance troupe “merde” and they went onstage, two of them terrified, one of them totally calm, as though the waves of anxiety radiating off them were the sea he was used to swimming in and he could alleviate their storms by his mere presence. Elise did not actually roll her eyes but she did pick up her books and put them on a shelf where they would only get shoe prints on them if someone decided to put their shoes up there. Knowing these three, someone probably would.

She opened her script to look over her notes again. Her first monologue was on accountability in government, and the next three explored empty threats compared with withholding information, the fifth was on the importance of independent external review of policy implementation. They did not take an especially moralizing standpoint, but they were, in her opinion, a rigorous commentary, buoyed with humor, and well structured.

After half an hour, the dancers returned backstage, finished with their performance. Mateo and Chip were both half-hugging, half-holding Gian who was visibly shaking. Elise couldn’t tell if it was out of fright until she heard him whispering “But he doesn’t go to the theatre... I mean if he’s going to be there you _know_ … He wouldn’t come here… This place is totally underground…”

Mateo looked at Chip, trying to hide a manic, terrified grin. He mouthed the words “Havelock Vetinari.”

Chip nodded and he looked like he was negotiating between a flight, freeze and thump-the-wall response. “Could you see how he was reacting? What did he think of it?”

Gian seemed to be trying to pull Chip and Mateo back towards him like if they got away the scorpions would get them. “He looked skeptical. Like he was thinking it would go better if he choreographed it himself. I could swear I saw that thought cross his face.”

Having spent years in the theatre, she had already automatically poured out water for the dancers and now she placed one of the cups in Gian’s hand and put the others on the table.

“Thank you, darling,” Chip said.

Looking back at her script, Elise felt her teeth begin to chatter. There was nothing for it. Step onto the stage. Jump out of the flapping-wing-flying-machine.

She stepped onto the stage. There was no Lord Vetinari in the audience. Had he left?

Overwhelmed with relief, she started talking.

She was fast and funny and fierce. She used the furniture that lived in the wings. She did a pirouette at one point as a transition, just because the stage was set up for dancing.

She waved at the actor Charlie as she bowed.

When she went backstage, Mateo and Chip where still huddled around Gian and she was becoming quite worried for all three of them.

“Just out of curiosity,” she said. “Where did you see Vetinari in the audience?”

“House right.” Gian said numbly.

“In the first row?”

Mateo nodded.

“On the aisle,” Chip added gloomily.

Elise began to laugh. The dancers stared at her. 

“Oh gods, that is so funny. You were so scared.”

Gian raised a doleful eyebrow questioningly.

“That was Charlie. The actor who looks like the Patrician. The one who used to be a grocer… Who was kidnapped when they were trying to frame him for stabbing that clerk.”

Mateo threw his hat in the air. “That’s the most Ankh-Morpork thing I’ve ever heard.”

Chip frowned. “How can you tell?”

“Different posture, most obviously. Charlie’s much less guarded. And he’s brought in cheese and caramel banged grains. People only eat cheese and caramel banged grains if they’ve been given them as a gift and no one would give the Patrician a gift that stupid.”

**Author's Note:**

> Plot twist: Vetinari re-gifted the banged grains to Charlie


End file.
